os.popen() vs os.system()

[Grant Edwards]

In article <Pine.WNT.4.21.9912220944130.205-100000 at wks_3.e-shopwork.com>, Sposhua wrote:
>Newbie...
>
>From what I've deciphered, the only differences between os.popen() and
>os.system() are:
>
>a) popen automatically starts a new process while system only does it if you
>   include an &

Under Unix both start a new process.  

The important difference (as I understand it) is

 popen lets you interact with the program by reading and writing pipes 
 while it's running.

 system() is more of a batch mode thing, the program runs to
 completion, then you get the return status.

>??? If so, what's the use of os.system()?

If you just want to run a shell command and don't need to
provide any stdin and don't care about stdout/stderr.  For
example, if you just want to copy a directory tree from one
place to another:

 status = os.system("cp -r srcdir /some/where/else")

If you want to start a program, send it input and/or watch its
output as it runs, then use popen().

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